Why do you want to touch the thing again? It's been ruinous
to you so far. Give it up! Come! I can't let you have it!"

Godolphin laughed, and all his beautiful white teeth shone. There was a
rich, wholesome red in his smoothly shaven cheeks; he was a real
pleasure to the eye. "I believe it would go better in New York. I'm not
afraid to try it. You mustn't take away my last chance of retrieving the
season. Hair of the dog, you know. Have you seen Grayson lately?"

"Yes, I saw him this afternoon. It was he that told me you were in
town."

"Ah, yes."

"And Godolphin, I've got it on my conscience, if you do take the play,
to tell you that I offered it to Grayson, and he refused it. I think you
ought to know that; it's only fair; and for the matter of that, it's
been kicking round all the theatres in New York."

"Dear boy!" said Godolphin, caressingly, and with a smile that was like
a benediction, "that doesn't make the least difference."

"Well, I wished you to know," said Maxwell, with a great load off his
mind.

"Yes, I understand that. Will you drink anything, or smoke anything?
Or--I forgot! I hate all that, too. But you'll join me in a cup of tea
downstairs?" They descended to the smoking-room below, and Godolphin
ordered the tea, and went on talking with a gay irrelevance till it
came. Then he said, as he poured out the two cups of it: "The fact is,
Grayson is going in with me, if I do your piece." This was news to
Maxwell, and yet he was somehow not surprised at it. "I dare say he told
you?"

"No, he didn't give me any hint of it. He simply told me that you were
in town, and where you were."

"Ah, that was like Grayson. Queer fish."

"But I'm mighty glad to know it. You can make it go, together, if any
power on earth can do it; and if it fails," Maxwell added, "I shall have
the satisfaction of ruining some one else this time."

"Well, Grayson has made nearly as bad a mess of it as I have, this
season," said Godolphin. "He's got to take off that thing he has going
now, and it's a question of what he shall put on. It will be an
experiment with Haxard, but I believe it will be a successful
experiment. I have every confidence in that play." Godolphin looked up,
his lips set convincingly, and with the air of a man who had stood
unfalteringly by his opinion from the first. "Now, if you will excuse
me, I will tell you what I think ought to be done to it."

"By all means," said Maxwell; "I shall be glad to do